


ad astra

by moreids



Category: The X-Files
Genre: College AU, F/F, also, just reall y soft, sams a psych major like mulder would be, this is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9129961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreids/pseuds/moreids
Summary: Sam can't sleep, but she can always rely on Scully to be there to help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hi idk if this even formatted correctly its my first time posting here but please be kind to me i just love the gays

It's well past midnight in Sam and Scully’s small dorm room when Scully feels the mattress start to dip under the weight of a body as familiar to her as her own. Scully has her back to the room as Sam slips into bed next to her, snaking an arm around her waist in a movement as natural as breathing. Scully makes a noise of protest and tugs on her end of the comforter; somehow the covers always end up on Sam’s side. Sam rests her chin on the other girl’s shoulder and proceeds to pull the sheet back around them both, her sleepy chuckle blowing warm breath against Scully’s ear. They sleep this way on most days, like two interconnected pieces of a puzzle, and Sam’s grateful for it. She doesn't want to think about finals or grade point averages or office hours or anything that isn’t Scully. She just wants to lay next to this small redheaded med student and sleep like a baby.

Scully’s breathing evens out and her legs, bare since she’s stolen Sam’s shorts again, are completely entangled with Sam’s longer ones. Sam often jokes that, for such an organized and steady person, Scully sleeps like a restless octopus. The pillow is slightly damp due to Scully’s slightly damp hair but Sam doesn't mind in the slightest. Scully’s shampoo smells like lavender and mint and home.

Sam isn't sure when Scully started to smell like home but she’s certain she never wants that to change.

The moonlight seeps through the blinds in pale stripes of white and Sam watches them fall across Scully’s eyelashes, across her bright hair, across the freckles scattered on her skin like constellations. Sometimes Sam will trace patterns in the ones on her back as they fall asleep, connect them to spell words she's too afraid to say out loud, heavy phrases like _I love you_ or _I need you_ that don't fit in Sam’s mouth yet.

Sam hasn't fallen asleep but she registers that the arm she has wrapped around Scully has. The slightly painful pins-and-needles sensation begins to set in as she watches the stars, almost drowned out by the brightness of the nearly full moon. It's not uncommon for Sam to have trouble falling asleep, but right now she feels restless. She considers getting up to make some coffee and study but she's too distracted for that and she'd never get anything done, so she taps Scully on the shoulder instead. She’s reluctant to disturb her, though she knows Scully won't be mad at her. In fact, Scully never seemed to be mad around her. The thought makes Sam feel a little lighter inside.

A pair of bright blue eyes open and shut sleepily and the owner just hums lowly in response, much more asleep than she is awake.

“Sorry.” Sam’s voice isn't louder than a whisper, but it sounds regretful.

“S’okay,” Scully says in the middle of a yawn, brow furrowing as she stretches and then props herself up on an elbow. “What's wrong?”

She gives her full attention to the brunette next to her, which is one of the things Sam finds so attractive about her. Some have found it unnerving or uncomfortable to look Scully straight in the eyes, which Sam can't blame them for. Scully is certainly intimidating when she wants to be. It's different though, the sharpness and focus in the way she looks at Sam. She does it with such concentration, as though nothing else in the world mattered more than the two of them. Sam often got the feeling that nothing did. There’s so much intensity, too, in the way Scully looks at Sam, like they'll never see each other again. It makes Sam wonder what she did to deserve to have Scully look at her this way.

“Can't sleep,” Sam mumbles, making an effort to not look away sheepishly.

Scully just rubs at her eyes and yawns as she clambers over Sam to get out of the bed, pausing only when she has one leg on either side of the girl underneath her and the faintest outline of a smirk on her lips. Sam looks up to the image of Scully on top of her, hair framing her face and backlit by the moon, and wonders how she was ever lucky enough to end up here.

It comes as no surprise when Scully leans her forehead against Sam’s, their lips barely brushing, only to pull away at the last second with a teasing smile. Sam groans in frustration and when Scully laughs in response it echoes around pleasantly in Sam’s ears while a feeling Sam can only put down as real, pure happiness spreads through her chest.

“I’ll get the hot chocolate. You get the blankets,” Scully whispers in Sam’s ear, and then the warmth of her body is gone and Sam is grumpy.

Five minutes later they’re in Scully’s battered old car and halfway up the tall hill that sits just off campus. The two of them have come up here so many nights to stargaze that it’s unofficially become known as their spot, much to Scully’s chagrin. She always jokes that doctors are supposed to be looking through microscopes, not up at the stars. Scully parks and they sit in silence for a long moment, looking at the outlines of each other in the dark as though they don’t already have them memorized. Sam shivers, but she isn’t particularly cold yet. Something about being here with Scully and an open sky in the middle of the night still excites her, and she can tell from the way Scully holds her hand that she feels the same.

They climb onto the hood of the car as they’ve done a thousand times before and Sam settles under the blanket next to Scully, edging closer to drape an arm around her shoulders. Sam tells Scully terrible knock-knock jokes just to see her laugh and Scully tells Sam about all the weirdest pathogens in her textbooks and when Sam burns her mouth on the hot chocolate Scully doesn’t waste any time offering to kiss it better. By the time they break apart for air Sam’s fingers are as numb as her mouth and she can’t help but think that they had to be made for each other.

“What do you think is up there?” Scully asks as she traces small circles into Sam's palm with her thumb. They've had this conversation before, under these same stars. Sam’s usual theories spring to mind, the ones she recites when the sound of her voice is the only thing that will calm Scully’s anxiety, the ones she turns over and over in her head when it gets too close to Fox’s birthday.

They all sound like defense mechanisms, and Sam doesn’t think that’s what Scully wants to hear. It’s not what Sam wants to say, either.

“I don’t know. Maybe I never will know. But I’d rather be here with you than up there,” Sam says, a little surprised by how easily the answer comes to her, but not at all surprised by how much she means it. Scully stares at her with wide eyes but she’s smiling, because they both know how long they’ve been tiptoeing around this moment. All Sam knows is that the stars always seem to shine brighter when they’re together.

Sam looks down at Scully, wrapped in a blanket and trembling from the cold, and has the sudden realization that she wants nothing more than to sit on the hood of this car with Scully for the rest of her life.

“I love you.” Sam blurts it out before she can stop herself and, funny enough, it turns out that _I love you_ isn’t a heavy phrase at all, not when it’s Scully she’s saying it to. It doesn’t sound like a confession, either, as Sam thought it would. It sounds more like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> wow this is a Really Old fic n i just felt like posting it ! but i hope it was clear that the roles were reversed n that fox was the one who was taken and not samantha and also this is college au with med student scully and psych major sam umm yeah thanks 4 reading !


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